Until the Government has acquired all the powers of employment that the private employers now possess, it can give nothing to starving women, but outdoor relief with money taken by taxation from the employers and their landlords and financiers, which is just what any unsocialist government does. To acquire those powers it must itself become the national landlord, the national financier, and the national employer. In other words, it cannot distribute the national income equally until it, instead of the private owners, has the national income to distribute. Until it has done so you cannot practise Socialism even if you want to: you may even be severely punished for trying. You may agitate and vote for all the steps by which equalization of income will be reached; but in your private life you cannot do otherwise than you have to do at present: that is, keep your social rank (know your place, as it is called), paying or receiving the usual wages, investing your money to the best advantage, and so forth. You see, it is one thing to understand the aim of Socialism, and quite another to carry it into practice, or even to see how it can or ever could be carried into practice. Jesus tells you to take no thought for the morrow’s dinner or dress. Matthew Arnold tells you to choose equality. But these are commandments without laws. How can you possibly obey them at present? To take no thought for the morrow as we now are is to become a tramp; and nobody can persuade a really intelligent woman that the problems of civilization can be solved by tramps. As to choosing equality, let us choose it by all means; but how? A woman cannot go into the streets to rifle the pockets of those who have more money than she has, and give money away to those who have less: the police would soon stop that, and pass her on from the prison cell to the lunatic asylum. She knows that there are things that the Government may do by law that no private person could be allowed to do. The Government may say to Mrs Jobson “If you murder Mrs Dobson (or anyone else) you will be hanged”. But if Mrs Dobson’s husband said to Mrs Jobson “If you murder my wife I will strangle you” he would be threatening to commit a crime, and could be severely punished for it, no matter how odious and dangerous Mrs Jobson might be. In America, crowds sometimes take criminals out of the hands of the law and lynch them. If they attempted to do that in England they would be dispersed by the police, or shot down by the soldiers, no matter how wicked the criminal and how natural their indignation at the crime.